A look at ‘Adventure’

Adventure magazine was one of the “Big Four” of pulp magazines. For those not aware, the other three are Argosy, Blue Book, and Short Stories. I’ve posted on Argosy, and may post on the others.

Adventure existed from 1910 to 1971, though not always as a pulp fiction magazine.

Ridgeway, which had been bought by Butterick Publishing, who published sewing patterns and related magazines, published Adventure, along with Everybody’s and Romance, until selling these to Popular Publications in 1934. I suspect Butterick basically sold Ridgeway to Popular, similar to Popular buying out Munsey in 1941, as they were on the verge of bankruptcy, and soon went under.

The major period for Adventure was under the editorship of Arthur Sullivant Hoffman between 1912 and 1927, but the magazine still remained a great pulp into the 1930s and ’40s. In 1917, it went to twice a month, in 1921 it went to three times a month. In 1926, it went back to twice a month until 1936 when it went back to monthly (except for a brief period from 1933-34).

Many great authors wrote for Adventure, many specializing in certain types of works. These included Talbot Mundy (colonial India and ancient Rome), T.S. Stribling (detective stories), Arthur O. Friel (South America), Patrick and Terence Casey (“hobo” stories), J. Allan Dunn (South Seas), Harold Lamb (medieval Europe and Asia), Hapsburg Liebe (westerns), Gordon Young (South Pacific and urban thrillers), Arthur D. Howden Smith (Viking era and U.S. history), H. Bedford-Jones (historical warfare), W.C. Tuttle (humorous westerns), Gordon MacCreagh (Burma and East Africa), Henry S. Whitehead (the Virgin Islands), Hugh Pendexter (U.S. history), Robert J. Pearsall (China), and L. Patrick Greene (Southern Africa). They also published works by H. Rider Haggard, Rafael Sabatini, Baroness Orczy, Damon Runyon and William Hope Hodgson.

In later years, under the ownership of Popular (after 1934), the magazine still had high-quality fiction and non-fiction. However, in 1953, it followed Argosy (also owned by Popular) in becoming a men’s adventure magazine. And further, like Argosy, in later years it ran photos of semi-nude women. Adventure ended in 1971. Argosy followed in 1978.

I have always loved Adventure‘s logo. It’s very iconic. In reviewing covers, it’s strange that they tried to change the logo in later years. Ugh.

Also the cover artwork was great for most of its run, at least into the 1940s. There were a few periods where they weren’t too great. In 1926-27, there were 10 issues in a row with text covers, followed by another 10 with monochromatic covers. Supposedly these lead Hoffman to leave, as managment did this as an attempt to compete with slick magazines. An earlier period, 1915-16 had demure women on the cover, as an attempt to appeal to that audience. Yes, both of these failed. I’ve love to get some high quality prints of the magazine’s classic covers as posters.

The only book-length non-fiction study of this magazine is The Lure of “Adventure” by Robert Kenneth Jones, originally Starmont Pulp and Dime Novel Studies #4 from 1989. Wildside Press has reprinted it, but without the cover artwork. Most frustrating for me was having all the covers reproduced in poor quality black-and-white. I’d love to see a more comprehensive work with ample cover artwork in color, as this one only covers 10 years of Hoffman’s period on the magazine.  A better work on the magazine can be found in Blood ‘n’ Thunder Presents, #1: Pride of the Pulps, which gives an excellent overview of Adventure (and other leading pulp magazines).

Now, if you want to read works from this pulp, you have several options.

Black Dog Books has put out two “Best of” collections, covering 1910-12 and 1913-14. I really hope they’d do more. And they created the “Adventure Library” with five volumes so far: The Black Death by Marion Polk Angelloti; In the Grip of the Minotaur by Farnham Bishop and Arthur G. Brodeur; King Corrigan’s Treasure by H.D. Couzens; Web of the Sun; and The Green Splotches by T.S. Stribling; L’Atlantide (The Queen of Atlantis) by Pierre Benoit. They also created a “Talbot Mundy Library” with seven planned volumes, four of which have been published.

Bison Books has put out eight volumes of Harold Lamb works. Off-Trail Publications have put out collections of Charles Beadle, J. Allan Dunn and Arthur O. Friel. Murania Press has included works by J. Allan Dunn, Talbot Mundy, and Gordon Young (Hurricane Williams stories) in their “Forgotten Classics of Pulp Fiction” series with more coming. And Altus Press/Steeger Books has collections from Gordon MacCreigh, Robert J Pearsall, and Sidney Herschel Small. Hopefully we’ll see more from these publishers.

I even found a pretty good DVD set of scans from Classic Pulp. It contains 193 issues from 1911-63. I would like a complete set of the pulp period, but this is the closest to that for now.